Hydrocodes » Gas Explosions
Gas or Process Industry explosions
Not all explosive interactions with structures come from high explosives. We collaborate with Shell Research on some of these alternative problems. In production facilities reactive gaseous mixtures commonly occur and are a source of accidental explosions. Here the explosion starts as a flame and accelerates up to a blast wave as a result of turbulence. This turbulence is greatly enhanced by the presence of obstacles (pipes, doors , walls etc). An idealised geometry illustrating this is shown in the next movie.
In reality the geometries are much more complex. We show an example of a calculation on an oil rig in the next movie. The movie pans out away from the source of the initial spark and follows the flame as it accelerates through the facility with all its complex pipework. Loads on any of the structural elements can be obtained from these calculations
